Digital cameras enjoy widespread use today. Such devices use one or more sensors to capture light from a scene and convert the light to a digital image, commonly as JPEG or RAW format files, which can later be transferred to other devices. Many modern digital cameras allow captured images to be displayed on the device such that the photographer can review, show, edit or delete images without needing to develop film. This functionality is typically available after an image is captured and typically a photographer is able to view a captured image within less than one second after it is captured.
Modern digital camera technology is found in numerous portable devices including compact cameras, video camcorders, digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, mobile camera-phones, tablet computers, laptops and handheld videogame consoles. The portable nature and convenience of such devices allows a user to frequently carry some form of digital camera with them. Therefore there has been a notable increase in the number of images being captured. Additionally, the success of social networks and online photo-sharing services indicate that users enjoy having electronic access to images captured by their friends, especially if both parties co-attended the same event together.
In particular, one common social behavior between two parties—a photographer and a friend—is for the photographer to capture an image of the friend and subsequently show the friend the image using review functionality of the camera. It is often these images that the friend explicitly asks to be sent a copy of. One problem for the photographer in such a scenario is the lack of convenient functionality to pass the image to the friend. Typically the photographer would first return home, transfer images from the camera to a computer, and then transmit the digital files to the interested recipient via (for example) the Internet. However, such a method of sharing images takes place some considerable time after the moment of capture and review—and in some cases the photographer forgets to share the images—such that the friend does not receive their desired images for a long time.
A photographer with an online-enabled camera can address the above problem. For instance, the photographer can upload desired images to their public gallery where the friend can later view the uploaded images. However, this approach involves uploading the images to a public or semi-public location and does not fully preserve privacy.
Alternatively, the photographer can use their online-enabled camera to directly transmit the images to the recipient via an Internet service (e.g. email, social networks), a proximity protocol (e.g. infrared sensors, Bluetooth), or some other telecommunication services (e.g. MMS, or “smartphone” apps such as Bump™ by Bump Technologies and Dropbox™ by Dropbox Inc.). However, such methods require a user to manually input contact information about a recipient and this unnecessary labor is compounded if multiple friends wish to obtain the images.
One method of sharing images scans a disk for images, detects faces, recognises faces based on their digital facial signatures, and sends images to the recognised people. Drawbacks of such a method include the need for considerable amounts of training data (digital signatures) for identification. Further, an image may be sent to everyone identified rather than only users who ask for a copy.